The project aims to offer advertisers and agencies access to a combined digital audience of approximately 42.5m in Britain, a monthly reach equivalent to that of Facebook, via a unified sales team able to offer joint inventory and data.

Unlike digital rivals, Ozone has pledged to give advertisers access to quality audiences and content free from the type of fake news, trolling and extreme content which have plagued social media providers in recent years.

By positioning itself as a bastion of brand safety and transparency Ozone aims to claw back market share lost to the digital upstarts.

Andy Atkinson, chief revenue officer at Reach said: “We have long believed and championed the need for publishers to collaborate meaningfully in order to provide brands the ability to reach consumers at scale and effectively and The Ozone Project is a significant, and natural, next step on that journey.”

The Ozone Project is scheduled to launch this autumn with an ambition to add further publishers and partners as the initiative gains momentum.